Cecil Francis
Parr
Male
England
1847-08-02
Grappenhall Heys, Cheshire, England
1928-01-13
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England
Cecil Francis Parr was born on 2 August 1847 in Grappenhall Heys, Warrington, Cheshire. He was the youngest of the nine children – eight sons and one daughter – of Thomas Parr (1792-1870), a banker and native of Warrington, and Alicia Parr (née Charlton; 1805-58), who was from Shrewsbury in Shropshire. As the following piece indicates, Thomas Parr’s father, Joseph, had formed the bank Parr & Co. in 1788 with two partners:
From: https://www.natwestgroup.com/heritage/people/thomas-parr.html
Thomas Parr was born on 6 December 1792, the son of Joseph Parr and his wife Ellen Lyon. He had an older brother, Joseph, and three older sisters. Joseph Parr senior was a sugar refiner in Warrington who, in 1788, had formed the bank Parr & Co. in partnership with two other men: his brother-in-law and fellow sugar refiner Thomas Lyon and attorney Walter Kerfoot.
In 1825 Thomas Parr became a partner in the family bank, probably as successor to his elder brother Joseph, who had joined the partnership in 1819 and died in 1824. In 1865 the bank was reconstructed to become a joint stock bank with limited liability, renamed Parr’s Banking Co Ltd. Thomas Parr became the bank’s first chairman, and retained that post until his death five years later.
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Like his brother and fellow lawn tennis player Henry B. Parr (1845-1930), Cecil Parr attended Cheltenham College, though only from April 1864 until June 1865. During his time at the college, Cecil was the cox for the rowing eight. He subsequently went up to Oxford University (B.A. 1872) and later qualified as a barrister-at-law. While a student at Oxford, he represented his college, Exeter, at cricket and also played football for the Oxford Association Club.
After being called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1874, Parr practised on the Northern Circuit before subsequently joining the family bank. In 1878, he was appointed a director of Parr’s Banking Company in and occupied various positions therein before eventually becoming chairman, a post he held from 1898 until 1918. Throughout the decades, Parr’s Banking Company took over several smaller banks, and in 1918 Parr’s Bank Limited was itself taken over by London County and Westminster Bank, one of the predecessors of NatWest Group. Cecil Parr was director of Westminster Bank from 1918 until his death in 1928,
On 14 December 1882, in Essendon, Hertfordshire, Parr had married Amy Ursula Dimsdale (1857-1917). A Londoner by birth, she was the daughter of Baron Robert Dimsdale and Cecilia Jane Dimsdale (née Southwell). The marriage between Cecil Parr and Amy Dimsdale produced one child, a son called Raymond Cecil Parr (1884-1965). Cecil Parr died in January 1928 in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, at the age of 80. He left effects to the value of £26,729 in his will.
1879 - 1880
0
10
7
Round 1
Cecil Francis Parr 1 *
Alexander Walton McIlwaine
6-2
6-5
6-1
Round 2
Cecil Francis Parr 1 *
Robert Wallace Glen Lee Braddell
5-6
6-4
5-6
6-2
6-5
Quarterfinals
Cecil Francis Parr 1 *
J. Bayly
1-6
6-3
6-2
4-6
6-4
Semifinals
Walter Edwin Fairlie 1 *
Cecil Francis Parr
6-0
5-6
6-2
1-6
6-5
Round 1
Mr. Bird 1 *
Cecil Francis Parr
2
sets
to
0
Round 1
Cecil Francis Parr 1 *
George Arnulph Montgomerie
6-3
3-6
6-4
3-6
6-3
Round 2
Cecil Francis Parr 1 *
Sir Hubert James Medlycott
6-5
6-5
6-2
Round 3
Cecil Francis Parr 1 *
Thomas Hoare
6-4
1-6
6-0
6-2
Quarterfinals
Cecil Francis Parr 1 *
Charles David Barry
6-2
6-5
6-4
Semifinals
John Thorneycroft Hartley 1 *
Cecil Francis Parr
2-6
6-0
6-1
6-1